Chapter 26
AMELIA
“Comfortable?” Jude asked as he combed his fingers through my hair. He seemed perfectly content that I was using his thighs as a pillow as we lounged by the river.
I peered through my lashes but immediately closed my eyes as the sharp noon sunlight blinded me as it leaked through the tree cover. “Mm-hmm.”
“Where’s your head at now?” he asked softly.
I let out a long exhale. “I’m pretending that I’m on a beach somewhere. Debating if I want to dress up and go out to dinner or if I’m going to order room service from my very fancy hotel and eat it in my bathtub that’s the size of a swimming pool.”
Jude chuckled. “Was that how your summer was supposed to go?”
“More or less,” I mused. “More relaxation. Less kidnapping.” I chanced a peek at Jude and caught him smiling. “I certainly didn’t expect this many hot bouncers.”
“Bouncers plural? Who are the other ones? I’ll kill ’em,” Jude teased.
I snickered. “I know you’re joking, but I still believe you would.”
He didn’t make a peep.
“Jude?” I said after a long stretch of silence.
“Hmm?”
“How many days has it been?”
“Since we left New Jersey?”
I smiled into the sunshine. “That’s a nice way to put it, but yes.”
“Four days.” He combed through my hair again. “Ten days since I first saw you at the casino, smelling like liquor and wearing that tiara.”
“A tiara I stole,” I said with a giggle. “The first casino I went to—the guy at the door wouldn’t let me inside. Apparently I looked too Ivy League. It was the best disguise I could get in a pinch.”
“Pretty damn smart,” he said under his breath. “Most people would take the loss. You’re quick on your feet.”
“I got lucky.”
He smoothed his thumb over my temple. “Nah. That’s not luck. It’s not IQ either. That’s being clever. Can’t teach that.”
“It got me in the door.”
“You’re a good storyteller.”
I hummed under my breath. “Maybe I’ll quit teaching and join the mob.”
“Pays better,” he joked.
The fact that it had only been four days since we arrived at the safe house stayed on my mind as Jude played with my hair.
For the last eleven days, I had been living a cathemeral life with little to no sleep.
Between the trips from New Haven to Atlantic City, playing blackjack for hours on end, and trying to wrap up my end-of-semester responsibilities, it had all melted together into one singular moment in time, regardless of sunrises and sunsets.
It’s only been four days?
It felt more like it had been four years.
And Jude? It felt like I had known him for a lifetime.
I would have chalked it up to Stockholm syndrome, but my attraction and emotional curiosity where Jude Greear was concerned had started long before he had proactively relocated me.
Ten days . . . It hadn’t even been a full two weeks. It was ridiculous to think that whatever we felt for each other went beyond exactly what he had said to me before we had sex: it was a coping mechanism. Stress relief. Something to take the edge off.
But was that so wrong?
I had never been one to trauma bond with others.
After my parents died, I went to support group after support group.
I had cried with strangers. I still considered some of them friends.
We had a common ground that I wouldn’t wish on anyone.
But I hadn’t felt this intrinsic pull with them.
Not the way I did with Jude—in spite of everything.
I liked the way his mind worked. The way he could be so calm on the surface but was a strategist behind his cool facade. I liked his sense of humor. I liked the way he was a little bristly on the outside but had the most tender heart.
“Tell me something about you,” I said.
Jude’s hair fell in a curtain on either side of his face, shadowing his expression as he looked down at me. “You know everything you need to know about me.”
I shook my head. “I want to know more.”
Jude faked a laugh. “I’m not that interesting.”
“Liar. Tell me something. Or I’ll go back to imagining someone else as the incredibly hot bouncer in my summer fantasy.”
His fingers stilled in my hair. “I like poetry.”
I pursed my lips. “I wouldn’t have expected that.”
Jude cocked his head. “Go ahead. Laugh.”
I couldn’t help but snicker. “I’m not laughing at you.”
“Just in my general direction.”
Our eyes met, and I noticed the way his crinkled around the corners. “I just didn’t expect that from you. Also, gross. I hated studying poetry. I will never understand why people like that shit.”
“It’s intentional.” Jude pulled his gaze away from me and studied the river. “Every word has to be carefully chosen. Every syllable. Every line. Nothing is haphazard about it.”
“Do you write poetry?” I asked.
“Not anymore.”
“Why not?”
“My mind isn’t quiet enough for it. I’m not comfortable with my thoughts these days.”
I rolled to my side and elbowed my way up to sitting. Jude chuckled as he picked leaves and sticks from the ends of my hair. “Isn’t that the point, though? To use it to work through all those thoughts? I don’t think art is supposed to be comfortable.”
Jude draped his arm around my shoulders. “We can’t all be as brave as you are.”
“I think reckless is more like it.”
“Brave,” he said with a little more gumption. “Words matter.”
I snapped a long piece of grass from where it sprouted between the rocks and wrapped it around my finger over and over again. “Do you think I’ll make it back to New Haven by August? We can’t stay out here forever . . .”
Jude leaned forward and rested his thick, tattooed forearms on top of his bent knees. “No. We can’t stay here forever. I’m just trying to figure out the best move.”
The lines across his forehead and between his brows were proof of how much it was weighing on him.
“I was close to having enough to pay off Joel’s debt. If I just had another day or two—”
“No, you weren’t.”
My full attention snapped to Jude. “What do you mean?”
“There’s a difference in paying off a debt and buying freedom. The latter has a lot more zeros.”
“But Joel said—”
“Joel thought if he paid the money back, he’d get off scot-free. Take out a loan, pay it back, and it’s done. But that’s not how it works. Once Valentine has an asset, he’s not keen on giving them up.”
“But Joel isn’t some mobster. He’s just—”
“The kind of guy who can wash money and make it look legit.”
Oh.
“He would’ve shown up to the meeting with all the money you won, paid up his debt, and then Valentine would’ve used something in his personal life to keep Joel on the hook to do his bidding.”
“He’s a workaholic. He hasn’t had a girlfriend in years. There’s nothing Valentine could use against him.”
“You.” Jude turned and faced me. “He had you. Even before you showed up at the Four Horsemen to try and win enough to clear his debt. Why do you think I looked into you so thoroughly? Cased your apartment. Learned everything there was to know about your friends. Your habits. Your life. You were always the mark, little fox. You were the endgame. Why else would it be better to keep you apart? A lock and a key are much more useful when they’re together, but separate them and—”
“They’re useless,” I finished for him as I snapped the blade of grass between my fingers. “I didn’t ask for this. I was just trying to get Joel out of it.” I huffed at the sky. “One of these days, I’m going to stop cleaning up his messes and he’s going to have to deal with the consequences.”
“Your love for him and your willingness to do whatever needs to be done says just as much about you as his willingness to let you take the fall says about him.”
I flopped back onto the bank and stared at the sky. “Where do we go from here?”
Jude rolled a pebble between his fingers before skipping it across the river. “John Valentine’s a big fish.”
“So how do we keep from getting swallowed by the big fish?”
He looked down at me. “Gotta go swim with sharks. We have to go to the one place he won’t fuck with.”
“Where’s that? Mars?”
Jude grinned. “Vegas.”
“Ah, yes. Las Vegas. The place where there are more mobs and the highest levels of security to keep people like me from winning big.”
“Is that what you think?” he asked.
“Joel told me about all the security measures casinos have. All the cameras over the tables that have programs to catch card counters. The way dealers are more trained to catch people.”
“Yeah, but now you have something you didn’t have before.”
I cut my eyes at him. “What’s that?”
Jude’s smile was predatory, like a lion flashing its teeth before it devours its prey. “You have me.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “I have the man who was last seen kidnapping me? You—America’s Most Wanted—want to take your ‘victim’ to a massive city that’s crawling with police and federal agents?”
“The police departments and FBI field offices in cities like Las Vegas are so overrun and understaffed that they have no problem letting casino security handle their own business. As long as we don’t stay more than one night, we’ll be golden.”
A sharp breath escaped. “And how are we supposed to get across the country without getting spotted or caught? And how am I supposed to win enough to get Valentine to leave us alone all in one night?”
“You,” Jude corrected. “You have to win enough to get Valentine to leave you alone.”
I swallowed as an unspoken heaviness settled between us. “I’ve seen what he had you do to people who barely wronged him.” I laid my hand on his. “I can’t imagine what he’d do to a traitor.”
Jude flipped his palm up and took my hand in his. “For once, I need you to worry about yourself only. If you stay safe, Joel will too. Focus on no one but yourself. Not your brother. Not me. Especially not me.”
“But I do.”
“I’ve always had an exit strategy, Dr. Hawthorne.”
“What is it?”
But Jude just shook his head. “You can’t be forced to tell something you don’t know.”
“What on earth does that—” Oh. “Plausible deniability.”
“Yeah.”
“I want to get you back to your life,” he said.
“I just need you to trust me. I need you to stay sharp. Keep practicing. I’ll start drilling you on counts.
I’ll teach you everything I know.” Jude’s voice softened.
“And selfishly, I’m gonna miss you when this is over,” he admitted. “I . . . I didn’t expect this.”
He didn’t have to say what it was that he didn’t expect.
We both knew because we both felt it.